Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too. As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever.

Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.

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Paul D

5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2017

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What can I say - if you like the Discworld series you'll love this one. I bought it earlier this year when I noticed it was the only Discworld book I didn't have on my Kindle, although I read it in hard copy when it first came out...so I must still have the hard copy somewhere?

Anyway, the usual well crafted storyline, and some examples of what I consider a Pratchett trademark, the throwaway one-liner joke which you realise afterwards has taken the last three pages to set up. If you think it might not be for you if you don't like football, don't worry - the theme of the book is football, but what it's really about is another slice of life in the bustling world that is Ankh-Morpork and Unseen University.

After seeing this book for such a good price, I thought I would get it, being that is is sold by Amazon itself, there should be no problem. It’s a book so there shouldn’t be any damage much more that a bumped corner or creased spine. This is true the book is it great condition, slight bumping of the corners and top of the spine. The pages are bright white with no marks on them.

So what’s the two stars for. The stickers they put on it, not easy peal!!! When I removed the stickers it took some of the cover with it. The lovely designed cover is now ruined!!!

Very disappointed, and could be solver easily, no stickers or easy peal stickers.

Though seemingly unrelated, two events have occurred in the city of Ankh-Morpork - an ancient football trophy is discovered in the Royal Art Museum and Mr Nutt who seemingly has no past, nor any memory of it, has started to work in the Unseen University as a candle dribbler. Both though are destined to come into each other's orbit as football, modernism, class, racism and celebrity are parodied through the lens of Terry Pratchett's satirical eye. Trying to summarise a Pratchett book is never easy. There is often no main plot as such, but rather a clutch of subplots that interweave in and out of each other binding to create a whole and tightening to a climax.

Unseen Academicals (the name of the University football team) basically revolves around the night time staff of the university - the mysterious Mr Nutt, Trev Likely (Nutt's colleague and son of football legend Dave Likely), Glenda (the level headed, cook extraordinaire) and Juliet (Glenda's airhead assistant blessed with glamourous good looks) - as they each come of age. It involves Dwarf fashion, street gangs and hooliganism, inter-university and club rivalry, and tyrannical and inter-racial politics. While Pratchett's books are light and comic, they are multi-layered, inter-textual (think Romeo and Juliet via Posh and Becks), and always explore and make deeper philosophical points and Unseen Academicals is no different. As with all of Pratchett's books the characterisation is excellent and the story skilfully plotted.

I thoroughly enjoyed the read. The first half of the book was excellent, although the second half tailed off a little. Whilst not quite up there with his very best books, it's certainly high quality fare.

Latest novel from sir terry pratchett and we're back on the discworld once again in the city of ankh morpork.

It runs for 400 pages exactly, and characters from previous discworld novels [including one we havent seen in a while] and new characters mix in a story that involve football coming to the city.

That's football as we would know it. The story starts with football as it used to be played - very large teams kicking balls through streets in games that lasted for days - being popular in the city. The patrician wants it under control. A clause in a will means the wizards from the unseen university will have to play a football match to avoid financial trouble. And discovery of an ancient artefact shows them what the rules should be.

Throw in working class trev, son of a former football star, glamorous but dim juliet and her friend smart but dumpy glenda, and mr nutt, a goblin who has to keep his head down. all these characters collide and lives are changed in the run up to the big match.

A sueperbly readable and a masterfully written book, down to very strong characterisation. all characters do very believable things, and although the changes they go through and the life lessons they learn may sometimes feel familiar, the quality of the prose is so good it keeps you turning the pages. As ever this is not laugh a minute comic writing, it's a novel of character with laughs arising out of that. Although there are moments where it does get very funny, particularly during the climactic football match.

Being 400 pages means the football does take a backseat in the middle when the plot focuses on mr nutt and a few dilemmas he faces, but everything comes together so well in the last hundred pages it's all worth it.

If you've never read a discworld novel before then you shouldnt have much trouble getting into this anyway. Although you may wonder about the back stories of some of the characters, and why the librarian is an orang utang. But even so, you should enjoy it enough to seek out his earlier work.

As an avid discworld fan, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book! 'Pratchett on football?' I thought, 'maybe someone will finally get me to like the sport!' But no. I still don't have any warm feelings towards the sport.

I did enjoy this book, but it only gets 3 stars based on there being other books by Pratchett that are better, but still not deserving of 5 stars.

So how do I think this book was, really? Well! Pratchett did do an excellent job of tackling the sport of football in terms of the discworld, but unfortunately, as all football talk in the real world eludes me, it also eluded me in this book. I wasn't entirely sure what most of the characters were talking about for the first 100 pages or so, but that isn't really pratchett's fault.

The characters were great, especially Glenda, but I felt they lacked a bit of depth compared to that of some of his other characters. Glenda being the exception. I probably liked her because I saw so much of myself in her, which is unusual for me and female characters, I usually hate them on sight, but I liked her. I really liked Nutt at the start of the book, but by the end he just felt like another character, and I wasn't too bothered by him. Trev was the opposite, I didn't like him at the start and he grew on me.

I wasn't sure about the inclusion of Juliet and the whole fashion business, maybe this is for a future book, but it didn't seem to have much place or reason in this book. Maybe I just missed it?

But as always, there were some fantastic parts to this story! Some amazing one liners, such as the possessed whistle which causes the user to shout random PE teacher related phrases such as: 'ANY BOY WHO HAS NOT BROUGHT HIS KIT WILL PLAY IN HIS PANTS!' something all kids dread to hear, and still instills fear in us as adults. And there are many more fantastic moments, paragraphs and * descriptions for us to enjoy! All seething with pratchett's fantastic charm and humour.

So although I didn't give this book a great score (mainly because I wasn't that into the storyline), it is still excellent and completely worth reading!

As you can see from my title, I had mixed feelings about this book after reading it twice. On the one hand, I love the Diskworld so much that any book by Terry is better than no book by Terry. On the other hand, this isn't as tightly plotted, as amusing or as profound as many of his other books. As another reviewer has said, several characters are picked up and dropped without explanation, other characters suddenly assume prominence and remain centre stage ad nauseum, and some characters are almost unrecognisable from previous books. The Patrician is far less chilly and inhuman (and sexy!), Lady Margolotta loses her slightly bizarre bat design chintzy clothing and becomes sexy, Sam Vimes is a mere cardboard cut out ... The wizards fare somewhat better and breeze through the story in their usual bluff and flatfooted manner.If I hadn't read any of the previous novels, I might well have enjoyed this far more. But as I said in the beginning, a 2nd rate novel from Terry Pratchett is far better than no more novels. I hope very much that he will be able (and willing) to write more.

The forward to the book is quite depressing as Terry explains that someone else had to type out the book for him whilst he dictated. His illness must be terribly frightening as it is for all sufferers, and it is depressing for all of his dedicated readers who have grown up reading his work.

Unseen Achademicals is a lovely story depicting the rise and rise of foot-the-ball in Ankh Morpork. A strange fell called Mr Nutt is in town, almost as if an orchestrated experiment by Vetinari which you're never sure (until the end) will be successful or not.

This mystery is intertwined with the wonderful humour you would expect of any Pratchett book which focuses on the Wizards as well as a blooming romance on the side which is uncertain due to the female interest finding fame in a way that smacks of today's X-factor culture.

Great fun - and well worth a read by anyone who has a vague idea of the Discworld series.

The hype at first gets to you. This is supposed to be a book about football and in a way it is - the origins of football - its dark origins. It is a very moral tale which surprised me because you do not expect morals nowadays. There is violence - or rather the implied threat of violence rather like a Hitchcock film. There are some of the usual suspects but also a fresh cast. So how does delia Smith come into this - one word - pies. This book explores the metaphysical relationship between pies and football while introducing goblins. The love interest is very 1950s English film, a bit of Carol Reed and a soupcon of David Lean. Thankfully it is not Naomi Campbell, more Twiggy in the Boyfriend. The luggage IS the sin-bin and of course the Librarian is in goal or is that in gaol? It is not War and Peace nor thankfully Harry Potter. So forget the hype and read it as a book on a wet afternoon and enjoy it. Oh yes and the Patrician gets roaring drunk. As if.

Positives - Well TP has proved it again, it seems from cinema, rock, post offices and banks to even football the discworld is just a better and funnier place than our earth.

Hope that the writing continues for as long as possible as TPs books always bring good cheer to me and i still haven't came across a writer who spans all ages and personalitys so well.

Just remember that no matter who wins it only a game after all, plenty of action and usual witty comments, although im worried what else TP can turn his hand to.

Negatives - although this book doesn't capture some of the full depth that some of his other books catch, if your a fan then i would defenitely read this as you will get the more subtle moments, and if not then read it anyways as it worth a light hearted moment and a giggle as perhaps you will like it enough to read more of his discworld series.

Another one of Terry Pratchett's "Diskworld" series; this time focussing on the wizards of Unseen University and their involvement in the beautiful game. His descriptions of the "shove" bear more than a passing resemblance to the mass games of mob football played in towns and villages during the middle ages; and the game between the two universities comes about in much the same way that the modern game of football became established.

Pratchett has a knack for taking the real world and holding it up to a mirror so that you can see the foibles, inconsistencies, and just plain silliness; but he does it in a way that allows you to laugh at yourself without feeling foolish. Of course it wouldn't be the Diskworld without highlighting some of the darker elements, and he does this very well.

Not being a fan of football I approached this with trepidation, but was pleasantly surprised - the sporting element takes a back seat to observations of supermodels and orcs, and the game only takes a few pages at the end. What I regard as the best characters are there - Vetinari and the wizards - and Pratchett uses humour to introduce some touching and scary truths about humanity. After so many books I don't tend to laugh out loud at the jokes but the humour is strong and consistent. The drawbacks were a few undeveloped stories, especially around the modelling and Nutt's history, and the length of the book. Whilst never boring, it could do with editing down.

Having been a fan for many years, I am saddened by the authors ilness. however, to my relief,it isn't obvious in this book. I liked it, although not as much as some of his earlier ones.Once again it is fun to recognise some of the ridiculous bits of our world mirrored with wit in the Discworld. It did get off to a slow start, and I found it hard to get into it but once I did, it was business as usual, with old 'friends' popping up and a few bits that made me laugh out loud. However, it wouldn't stand alone - it relies very much on readers having read the earlier ones: but then, probably if you hadn't, you would not be buying this one!

The latest in the Discworld books and a joy to read. Lots of new characters with those wonderful, bumbling and pompous wizards from Unssen University thrown in! Not just for lovers of football and rugby!

I have been reading Terry Pratchett's books from the beginning and he has never failed to entertain, amuse and interest his readers, together with imparting wisdom. I find that you come away from his books seeing people and the world in a slightly different, and better, way.

The central character, Mr Nutt, is an endearing chap with frightening intellect and one of a group of four central characters - a fantastically great read.

I warn you that this is one of those books you end up trying to read in one sitting!

Don't worry: Terry Pratchett is still great! This very erudite work explains how football developed from being a game to beat up opposing villagers without a ball being strictly necessary into the polite non-violent game with a ball that we all know. You might have guessed that, as a player, Ponder Stibbons is no great shakes (especially where magic is not allowed). Now, think who could possibly be the goalie except the Librarian. A good story with echoes of Romeo and Juliet, unfathomable interest from Vetinari and of course something mysterious and probably very nasty from Uberland lurking in the background.